Hey Guys! This is AJ Burns, owner of Meru Safety. At PRI last December we launched a brand new Frontal Head Restraint with great reception. We got through SFI 38.1 testing in February and started shipping braces in March. We have been able to get braces in all different types of cars. We have already got braces on top drivers in the circle track and rally markets and have a few debuting braces in road/endurance racing soon. IMSA accepts our SFI 38.1 rating so keep your eye out for a few drivers to make the switch here within the next few weeks.
When designing our brace we wanted to maintain neck safety while improving on concussion reduction. We needed to find a way to bring the head to a slower stop when the restraint would limit head movement. We had a background in suspension development in the motorcycle industry so we started working on a brace that incorporated a hydraulic shock absorber into the headrest. We developed what we now call IDS(Inertia Damping System) which is a small hydraulic shock that has speed sensitive valving in it. At low speed the shock and headrest move fairly free to maintain driver comfort in the car. But as the shaft speed in the shock speeds up with bigger hits the valving rapidly stiffens. The idea is that as soon as your head starts to move in an impact we can start slowing it down bringing it to a progressive stop instead of waiting until then end and bringing it to a stop all at once which will reduce forces through the head. We also run a much shorter sliding tether than most so that we can control the heads entire movement forward and back while also maintaining the same stopping point going forward and maintaining neck safety.
Our patent was granted in May 2020 and we cleared SFI testing this year and have the graphs and video from those test published on our website at meru-safety.com.
Here is a quick video on the brace. https://www.facebook.com/reel/6696605667036443
And here are some pictures below. Please check out the website and if you have any questions email aj@meru-safety.com